It took authorities approximately two years to gather enough evidence to press charges in a 2008 incident in which multiple shots were fired at a cropduster as it flew over a property next to Flying Lead Ranch, owned by 41-year-old Stephen Paul Riley, in northern Texas.
On Tuesday, Riley pled guilty to shooting the airplane as it flew near his hunting ranch, hitting its rudder cable with one bullet and nearly breaking it in the process. Another bullet hit the aircraft’s V-strut bar, coming dangerously close to the connector bolt, while other bullets left a hole in the airplane’s rear left wing as well as indentations throughout the fuselage.
